Big Train

Series Similar to Big Train

If you enjoyed Big Train, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. A Bit of Fry and Laurie

   1987 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were among the most successful acts of the alternative comedy show Saturday Live/Friday Night Live and after a Christmas pilot in 1987, the BBC commissioned a series in 1989."My father wouldn't have a television in the house, so we used to gather round every night and watch it on the lawn".Fry and Laurie explored a seemingly inexhaustible list of subjects with a delicious turn of phrase and elaborate wordplay. The hilarity-included regular acts such as not so super spy Tony Mercheson and his boss Control, yuppies, John and Peter, as well as the concluding cocktail recipe to the accompaniment of Mr. Music with plenty of Vox Pops.

2. Look Around You

   2002 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, also on BBC Two.

   Look around you. Look around you. Just look around you. What do you see? A tree. A weather-vane. A discarded lollipop-wrapper. A traffic shop. All of these things, and any other things you may care to mention, have one thing in common. Can you work out what it is? The first series of this British comedy show, filmed in 2002, was a send-up of the earnest programmes for schools made in the 1960s and 1970s. The second series (2005) is a friendlier spoof of the BBC's own slightly wacky 'Tomorrow's World' programme (1965-2002), and it gives a view from somewhere around 1982 of what life might be like in the early 21st century. The new series is again written by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz and consists of six thirty-minute shows, a big improvement on the ten-minute format of the first series. The new episodes are all wonderfully daft... Remember to have your jotter and your copy book handy!

3. Fawlty Towers

   1975 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.5), also on BBC Two.

   Fawlty Towers is set in a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay. The plots centre on tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty, his bossy wife Sybil, comparatively normal chambermaid Polly, who is often the peacemaker and voice of reason, and hapless Spanish waiter Manuel, showing their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests.

4. Blackadder

   1983 · Comedy, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.4).

   Comedy set in different historical periods that features the ill-fated exploits of the mean-spirited Edmund Blackadder and his dim sidekick Baldrick.

5. The Kids in the Hall

   1988 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Get ready for sketch comedy...Canadian style! The Kids In The Hall are a hilarious sketch comedy troupe. They got their name from a comedian named Jack Benny, who would often end a joke by saying: "I got this from the kids in the hall", referring to the amateur comedians who would hang around outside his office. KITH was formed in 1984 when McCulloch and McKinney, who had worked together in Calgary as part of a group named the Audience, teamed up with Foley and McDonald's Toronto-based group, KITH. Thompson officially joined in January 1985. That same year, McCulloch and McKinney were hired as writers for NBC's Saturday Night Live after a talent scout saw KITH in performance. Significantly, SNL had also been created by Michaels, himself an ex-patriate Canadian living and producing in New York. Still in 1985, Foley appeared in the film High Stakes, and Thompson and McDonald toured with...

6. SCTV

   1976 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8).

   Don't touch that dial! Don't touch that one either! And stop touching yourself! SCTV is on the air! Sketch comedy show set around the fictitious TV station SCTV. The programs broadcast by SCTV were parodies of films and other television shows.

7. I'm Alan Partridge

   1997 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.1), hidden gem, also on BBC Two.

   This classic BBC comedy comes courtesy of Steve Coogan. Alan is a fictional self-obsessed DJ who has had several TV jobs in the past (including chat show 'Knowing Me Knowing You') and has failed to bounce back from his long dead career. Each episode normally sees Alan resorting to embarrassing anecdotes, insulting someone without noticing and failing to revive his career.

8. Father Ted

   1995 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.1).

   One small island off the west coast of Ireland. Three priests. One housekeeper. A bunch of nuns - and the most consistently awful weather on the planet.

9. Yes, Prime Minister

   1986 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.1), hidden gem, also on BBC Two.

   Continuing the struggle of Minster Jim Hacker to actually get something done in Whitehall politics, Yes, Prime Minister saw Jim achieve every politician's dream and slide up the greasy pole, right to the door of Number 10.

10. The Office

    2001 · Comedy · ended

    Recommended for similar Comedy profile, hidden gem, also on BBC Two.

    A mockumentary about life in a mid-sized suboffice paper merchants in a bleak British industrial town, where manager David Brent thinks he's the coolest, funniest, and most popular boss ever. He isn't. That doesn't stop him from embarrassing himself in front of the cameras on a regular basis, whether from his political sermonizing, his stand-up 'comedy', or his incredibly unique dancing. Meanwhile, long-suffering Tim longs after Dawn the engaged receptionist and keeps himself sane by playing childish practical jokes on his insufferable, army-obsessed deskmate Gareth. Will the Slough office be closed? Will the BBC give David a game show? Will Tim and Dawn end up with each other? And more importantly, will Gareth realize what a hopeless prat he is?